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AIX has so many features and exciting developments, that it's a delight to blog about. In this blog I hope to provide something for absolute beginners as well as for those with a lot of exposure to AIX. I've been working on AIX since version 3.1 was released and I'm learning all the time. I look forward to sharing ideas and learning new and better ways of doing things on AIX. I'm an independent contractor working on IBM Power Systems in Sydney. Being Australian may explain the spelling (virtualisation, data centre) but hopefully you won't find... [More]

User names on AIX used to be restricted to eight characters. That's still the default setting but since AIX 5.3 you can increase the length up to an amazing 256 characters, if users really want to spend the morning logging in. You can view the current maximum login name using:
lsattr
–El sys0 | grep max_logname
Update: I incorrectly had listed the parameter as max_login. The correct parameter is max_logname. Thanks to jabber44 for the correction. or via smit System Environments -> Change / Show Characteristics of Operating... [More]

While you're in the middle of testing a new script, you may be tempted to add it to the cron to see how it goes. That involves: checking the system time using the date command translating that into the format explained by the man page for crontab : minute
hour day_of_month month weekday command and setting the command just in time to start before the next minute ticks over. After reworking the script a few times, looking up the crontab command which tells you that the week starts with 0 for Sunday, and minutes come before hours, and not... [More]

Recycle your typos Do you use control-c a lot? What about the backspace key? I have to admit that on the command line I'm a pretty sloopy typsit sloppy typist, but I've learned one trick which saves me thousands of keystrokes. Here it is: Esc # Why is that so helpful? First of all, it turns your mistyped line into a comment. More importantly, it saves the line into your shell history, so you can recall it later. A comment on your mistakes You might not have thought of putting comments on the command line. Many people don't put them into their... [More]

Updating the HMC in comfort ... It's important to keep your Hardware Management Console firmware reasonably up to date. The HMC looks after the server hardware management. It also allows you to manage LPARs - create them, start and stop them, access the console and even assign resources dynamically. The HMC interacts closely with the hypervisors of the IBM POWER™ Systems so the HMC needs to be at a level which is compatible with the firmware of the managed system itself. Check your firmware compatibility on the IBM Systems Support web site.... [More]

Updated 28 January 2011
A few notes and clarifications :
What I call the Virtual Media Library is often also called the Virtual Media Repositor y (VMR). IBM documentation uses both terms.
the syntax for creating the virtual optical device was incorrect. Details within the body of the post below.
You may also be interested in an article of mine in the IBM Systems Magazine on the Virtual Media Library: Media Release - Keep software and OS backups handy with... [More]

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Introducing Mr. smit If
you've ever had to do any administration on an AIX system, you'll be
familiar with the command smit .
It stands for the S ystems
M anagement I nterface
T ool and gives menu-driven access
to most key tasks to do with AIX system administration. We write
about SMIT (in uppercase), but when you run the command, use smit
( in... [More]

A Standard Operating Environment LPAR It is so easy to build an AIX LPAR these days, that we can end up with lots of them very quickly. When this happens, or even before it does, it may be worth building one more : a S tandard O perating E nvironment or SOE. This can provide consistency in your organisation's configuration and make it even faster to build new LPARs without starting from scratch. What is an SOE for AIX? The NIM from A to Z in AIX 5L Redbook has a valuable section on building an SOE. Although it's
for NIM on AIX 5, it raises... [More]

"Clean up the system" You have suddenly been appointed as AIX
administrator after the previous admin disappeared in mysterious circumstances. You've logged onto the AIX system once before. You've been told to do a final tidy-up of the new 24X7 production system before it goes live tomorrow morning. Someone you met at a party once suggested that a very effective way of cleaning up your Unix system was running the command
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